(The following article by Patrick McGeehan was posted on the New York Times website on July 28.)
NEW YORK — The idea of another train tunnel under the Hudson River came a step closer to reality yesterday, but not without impassioned arguments against its ending at a station below Macy’s flagship store in Midtown.
New Jersey Transit’s board unanimously approved the proposed route of the tunnel, which would run 15 feet beneath the bed of the Hudson to Midtown from northern New Jersey. The approval was a prerequisite to seeking federal financing for the project, whose cost is estimated to be $6 billion.
Officials of the transit agency have been stumping for the plan for years, arguing that the 95-year-old tunnel it shares with Amtrak is nearing capacity and will not be able to handle the projected population growth west of the Hudson. The existing two-track tunnel ends at Pennsylvania Station, a block south of where New Jersey Transit wants to build a station as far as 100 feet below 34th Street.
Nobody who spoke at the agency’s board meeting disputed the need for another tunnel, which actually would be twin tunnels, each with a single track. But several insisted that the tunnel should reach farther, to Grand Central Terminal, to deliver commuters closer to their East Side offices. They also questioned the safety of tens of thousands of riders unloading and loading on platforms several stories below ground.
“The plan is costly and inconvenient for rail passengers,” said George Haikalis, chairman of the Regional Rail Working Group and a resident of Greenwich Village. He said that “constructing a deep cavern station under Macy’s” would pose “significant risks to passengers.”
A representative of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, Albert Papp Jr., assailed the plans for the West Side station and a new terminal for the Long Island Rail Road that would be built beneath Grand Central.
“We don’t need two more stations in Manhattan,” said Mr. Papp, who urged the directors to postpone a decision and meet with other transit agencies to develop a regional solution to transporting more commuters to and from Manhattan.
But New Jersey Transit’s executive director, George D. Warrington, said he had already ruled out seeking permission from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to connect the tunnel to Grand Central, in part because it would sharply inflate the project’s cost. That estimate has already increased from the original $4 billion projection, he said.
“You have to be practical and realistic about what you can do,” Mr. Warrington said. “That extension adds billions of dollars to the project. We’ve got to bite off what we can.”
He said the proposed station site also fits with the goals of New York’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, and his deputy, Daniel L. Doctoroff, who have championed the redevelopment of the area west of Penn Station.
Mr. Warrington received the support of the Regional Plan Association, a research group that had favored having trains run through the tunnel, then loop counterclockwise through a few new rail stations spread around Midtown.